A Double Burden and “The Rising of the Race”
Minority women faced a double burden or double oppression: first, as members of a minority group (Black, Latino, Asian) they had to endure the general discrimination and exploitation of their ethnic or racial group taken as a whole. Second, they faced discrimination because of their gender. We will take up each type of oppression in turn.
FIRST FORM OF OPPRESSION
Working-class minorities generally received less education than others, frequently ended up in lower-paying unskilled jobs, and were often expected to live in segregated areas, either by law or by “custom”. They were sometimes prevented from voting by legal chicanery or by the threat of violence. Blacks in the South in particular faced violent retribution for attempting to vote.
America’s “colored” minorities—Blacks and Hispanics especially–were often excluded from juries. They had an inadequate voice in the political system with little opportunity to redress these injustices, since they often lacked effective representation in courtrooms, and so forth.
They faced great prejudice and racism, discrimination and exploitation, on both a personal and a social level. Suffice it to say that American society was extremely discriminatory against “colored people”. Opportunities for them to succeed in education, business, politics, or professional careers were sharply curtailed in a thousand ways.
All of these unjust aspects of a racialized society applied to every member of the minority group, both men and women. However, from the woman’s point of view, this was not the end of the story of injustice and inequality.
SECOND FORM OF OPPRESSION
In addition to these social forms of discrimination facing her because of her color or ethnicity, minority women faced a second set of challenges linked specifically to their gender and subservient role as women. In short, there was no guarantee they would be treated fairly by men within their own ethnicity and culture, let alone the larger society.
This situation has been referred to by writers as an example of minority women being “doubly oppressed”. They were denied their own gender rights and equality with men, while at the same time they were part of an ethnic minority which itself lacked full social and legal rights within American society.
Minority families often lived in poverty due to the low salary of those who worked or the seasonal nature of some jobs, such as migrant laborers and construction workers. The breadwinners in the family faced periodic periods of unemployment.
Migrant workers had to endure the necessity of traveling from place to place to find gainful employment in the fields. They were nomads, in a sense; the length of stay in each new place largely determined by the number of weeks to harvest a particular crop.
Minority women seldom enjoyed the higher income or social status of middle class women; to the contrary, they often faced many kinds of deprivations for themselves and their families. Nevertheless, they were still looked to as the central figure within a family expected to hold everyone together, body and soul.
Thus, women of color were expected to work “miracles” with less than most white women: to take care of all domestic duties (preparing food, raising the children, cleaning, etc.) She was expected to take care of the needs of her husband and possibly other adult family members, often with a woefully inadequate amount of money if her husband’s salary was low or if he were unemployed.
She was expected to do all this while having to endure second class citizenship within the larger society as well as further mistreatment due to male chauvinism within her own culture–if not outright incidents of physical and sexual abuse, with few legal actions open to her.
In addition to this gender aspect of her situation, she continued to face the same social and economic discrimination the men experienced simply because they were members of a minority: Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, Filipino, etc.
THE SITUATION FOR WOMEN
In 1850, lacking the right to vote was just one of many forms of social injustice women faced as a group. In time, they would finally win the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment.
This was a giant step forward and remains one of the greatest victories of the women’s movement for equal rights, and yet it by no means signaled the end of the struggle to overcome all the many other forms of inequality faced by women.
Yes, in some ways the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 marked the heroic culmination of a seventy-year struggle for the right to vote, but in another way it should be seen as laying the foundation for a new beginning. Suffrage opened the doors of opportunity for women to have a greater voice in the political affairs of their country.
Now that they could vote they could express their opinions, they could run for office, they could organize! In short, they could influence which candidates would win and which laws were passed. The movement, slowly but surely, began gathering steam.
Getting the vote is the crowning achievement of that great struggle started by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone in the middle of the 19th century. At the same time, acquiring the vote marked the start of a new era in which women could ask themselves: if they were now equal with men in the right to vote, why shouldn’t they be considered equal with men in every other legal and social context?
Why should any college or profession be closed to them? Why should they get paid less for doing the same job? Why should laws and social customs favor men in so many countless ways? Why shouldn’t women have full legal and social equality with men whether in school, the home, or the workplace?
The next stage in the movement for full equality was under way—a second great wave of social activism was approaching critical mass. It scared many (too far too fast!) but the movement had a larger purpose in mind: FULL EQUALITY!!
And if the activism and exploration of personal freedom for females was “shocking” to many during the Roaring Twenties, it would seem relatively mild in retrospect some forty years later when the women’s liberation movement of the Sixties rocked society to its core, casting off all taboos restricting sexual freedom, life-style, and career choices.
Once again a new generation of women—this time primarily college students, social reformers, and community activists—took the lead in expanding the women’s role in society and, most crucially, who should get to define that role.
Women from all walks of life found they had endured more than enough of second-class citizenship and a thousand types of insults and indignities. Now they, as individuals–and the larger movement taken as a whole–were coming of age: women were no longer asking for equality, they were demanding it!
Many women sought unfettered freedom to explore their own lives as creative and independent human beings. Their own consciences would provide the guidelines for how well they did; they did not need to simply please men or seek their approval any longer.
Yet, even as the third wave of feminism swept the nation, women soon found themselves facing many of the same challenges and difficulties as men did. Finding a good job–where they could earn enough to support themselves and their families–was not always so easy, especially during an economic downturn.
Women had to worry about the same future as men did: what were they to do if they were laid off due to a recession or downsizing or shipping jobs overseas? For various reasons, an increasing number of families were headed by a single mom who had to both work and nurture her children.
Meanwhile, even as society changed, new questions had to be addressed: what should the role of the woman (especially the working woman) be in the family regarding husband, children, and household? Could she ever escape the expectation that her skill and gentle touch were needed to keep her family healthy and whole?
THE CHANGING PICTURE
“Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.”
(“The more things change, the more they remain the same.”)
Women continue to face many diverse challenges today: some they share as civic members of the larger society, while others are unique to their gender. The previous struggles, even when successful, often bring to light new obstacles and unforeseen difficulties. The phrase “glass ceiling” was not in common use before 1984.
Whatever comes next, of one thing we can be fairly sure: women have made many amazing contributions to the well-being of their families and to the health of society as a whole, and they will continue to do so now and in the foreseeable future.
With greater freedom comes greater responsibility, certainly, but just as women have risen to overcome every obstacle they have faced in the past, they will rise to meet new challenges in the future.
A new era for mankind may well be dawning because for the first time women will have the freedom to take her rightful place alongside men as a full and equal partner. In this new equality, in this new freedom, may well rest the last best hope of mankind for solving the many crises facing our world today.
IN OLDEN TIMES
In the old days, during the fierce struggles of workers to protect their rights through their union, a poem was turned into a song, a poem that talked of the day when
“The rising of the women / will mean the rising of the race!”
Working-class women joined that struggle for workers’ rights and they have remained a vital part of the labor movement ever since. Women have also entered the professions, sciences, industry, sports, businesses, politics and so much more. They have proven time and time again that–given the same encouragement, freedom, support, and opportunity to succeed as men receive–nothing is beyond their reach.
Women can be teachers, nurses, doctors, preachers; they can be taxi drivers and bus drivers, construction workers and skilled craftsmen; they can be auto mechanics, electricians, carpenters, and plumbers; they can be secretaries and executive assistants or they can fill middle-management roles as office managers and supervisors.
Moreover, they can be business owners, franchise owners, and corporate executives; they can be real estate agents, bank tellers and bankers; accountants and financiers; vice-presidents, chief financial officers, and CEO’s. They can serve in the armed forces or as police officers and fire-fighters. They can be artists, entertainers, sculptors, painters, musicians, dancers, singers, composers; they can be race car drivers or Kentucky Derby jockeys or space-venturing astronauts.
They can be Olympic athletes and climbers of the tallest mountains; they can be members of city councils mayors, and supervisors; they can serve on local, county, and state boards of education. They can be elected to local and state legislative bodies; they can be Representatives and Senators; they can be presidential candidates (and one day president); and the list goes on!
The “rising of the women”–the long-awaited liberation of their character and personality, their minds and talent–should never be seen as a threat to men or to society. To the contrary, these changes will usher in a more just society at home and a new era of world peace abroad. They are mothers who can appreciate life as sacred in a way that many male leaders appear to have forgotten.
Around the world women are being elected heads of government. If someday wars come to an end, women will be there. If one day a group of future leaders meet to settle their differences peacefully through discussion and negotiation, one can be fairly certain that some few of them will be women.
It would be an altogether fitting development in the long history of mankind if women, the bearers of life, should play the pivotal role in changing national policy from blindly endorsing war to affirming the right of life for all humankind through cooperation and mutual trust among all nations—as among our own families and communities.
WHAT THE FUTURE MIGHT BE
Who better to lead the world on a path toward peace? The Iroquois long ago designated the women of their tribe as the keepers of the sacred flame, the protectors of life. If women remain true to their instinct to treasure the sanctity of life, perhaps it is not too late to hope that the peoples of the world—men, women, and children of every color, language, and custom—will one day sit down together at the same table of brotherhood.
They will see each other for who they truly are: not strangers or enemies but friends and relatives–human beings just like themselves–with the same hopes and dreams, the same needs and fears, the same aspirations and challenges, the same abilities and potential as anyone else!
We are all one great extended family of mankind. If women can help us rediscover this simple truth that we have always known—no matter how deeply buried or forgotten it appears to be—it may well be their crowning achievement above all others.
Recapturing our basic and universal humanity is the one achievement that will rise the highest and outshine every other star in the sky that has ever shed its brilliant luminescence above the planet earth: home to us all and to every living creature upon it.
I wish the next generation of women all the best, knowing that in some ways they are charged with the most challenging and difficult task of all: saving us from ourselves.
I have faith they will not be alone! The rising of the women will in time lead to the rising of a new kind of man as well: more thoughtful, gentle, and wise than ever seen before.
Together, these new men and women, seeking freedom and justice for all, will create the world human beings were always intended to have: a world of peace and justice . . . where injustice will fade while the hopes and promises of a brighter future will, horizon-appearing, come ever closer to fruition–until one day the best of all our human dreams, for both men and women, will arrive in full bloom and sunshine!
“The rising of the women means the rising of the race!”
Copyrighted by:
Dr. Rosenberg @ home
San Jose, California
Sept. 30, 2011 (revised 1/30/18)
